This Storm

This brutal, but redemptive masterpiece confirms that 2014’s disappointing Perfidia represented just a bump in the road of James Ellroy’s stellar career rather than presaging a terminal decline. This Storm is set in Los Angeles in 1942 as the government begins preparing for the internment of Japanese Americans. Against this febrile backdrop, Ellroy conceives of a plot linking a train robbery, a badly burned corpse and the murders of two detectives in a flophouse. Almost all of the characters are unsympathetic, and much of the action is grotesque, and despite the author daring you to look away, it’s impossible not to see this compelling thriller through to the end. Read our full review here.